Here's to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do...
Visit the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and is definitely one of my favourite things I've ever done.
As soon as I heard that I was going to Vegas, and I found out that you could easily get helicopter trips out of Vegas to the Canyon, it became the number one thing I had to do that trip.
Copter rides are pricey, but after a little shopping around, we found a great company, Maverick, to fly us out to the Canyon and then ACTUALLY TOUCH DOWN in the Canyon so you could do a little exploring.
I could barely contain my excitement as I woke up at 6am that morning to catch the Maverick shuttle to the airport where our helicopter would be taking off from. I had also never ridden in a helicopter before (and was actually another life list goal of mine) so this totally added to my almost manic excitement.
Quadruple-checking that I had packed my camera, I headed out and was immediately put at ease by the obvious professionalism and know-how of the Maverick company. Massive hat tip there.
After a little waiting around, we were introduced to our pilot, given a safety briefing, and out we padded to our seven-man copter. Here is me grinning like a crazy lady as I managed to score the top spot of front-seat next to the window (top cos you are mostly surrounded with glass rather than people for excellent photo-taking):
Here is another photo of us waiting for the helicopter before us to head out to the runway. Helicopters are freaking awesome:
Oh and here is a shot of our pilot. He was really funny, informative and didn't crash, which was the most important thing:
And then, almost out of nowhere, we were OFF! Riding in a helicopter is an amazing feeling, definitely a little uncertain at first, because it is ridiculously noisy and you feel very exposed, but you definitely get used to it, and then begin to marvel at flying through the air with only a little glass between you and the sky.
Its about a 40min ride to the Canyon from Vegas, but there was plenty to see on the way there. Our pilot had loads of interesting tidbits to share and pointed out loads of excellent things on the way. One of them was the Hoover Dam, an absolutely mental piece of engineering, check this out:
Here are a couple more pics from the way there:
It sounds cliche, but the pictures really don't do the vista justice. You can't get a sense of how immense and vast the view was.
After loads of gawping along the way, we finally touched down at the Canyon. The Grand Canyon is actually in Arizona, so we'd actually flown to a whole other state. Wherever we were, it was the most stunning piece of natural beauty I'd ever seen. Here are some more pics (that completely fail to capture how amazing it was):
After a nice picnic breakfast and some clambering about the edges of the Canyon, it was time to head back (and also to make a quick pit stop in the middle of the desert for some more fuel. Important!
Finally, after a while flying back, you suddenly see Vegas sprout up from the desert floor. We flew back ride over the Strip and landed safely home:
All in all, the trip took around 4 hours. It was an amazing experience and one I will never forget. I recommend this HIGHLY!